Posted on 01/16/2008 4:01:09 AM PST by LowCountryJoe
Rochester
IN the days before Tuesday’s Republican presidential primary in Michigan, Mitt Romney and John McCain battled over what the government owes to workers who lose their jobs because of the foreign competition unleashed by free trade. Their rhetoric differed — Mr. Romney said he would “fight for every single job,” while Mr. McCain said some jobs “are not coming back” — but their proposed policies were remarkably similar: educate and retrain the workers for new jobs.
All economists know that when American jobs are outsourced, Americans as a group are net winners. What we lose through lower wages is more than offset by what we gain through lower prices. In other words, the winners can more than afford to compensate the losers. Does that mean they ought to? Does it create a moral mandate for the taxpayer-subsidized retraining programs proposed by Mr. McCain and Mr. Romney?
Um, no. Even if you’ve just lost your job, there’s something fundamentally churlish about blaming the very phenomenon that’s elevated you above the subsistence level since the day you were born. If the world owes you compensation for enduring the downside of trade, what do you owe the world for enjoying the upside?
[Snip]
One way to think about that is to ask what your moral instincts tell you in analogous situations. Suppose, after years of buying shampoo at your local pharmacy, you discover you can order the same shampoo for less money on the Web. Do you have an obligation to compensate your pharmacist? If you move to a cheaper apartment, should you compensate your landlord? When you eat at McDonald’s, should you compensate the owners of the diner next door? Public policy should not be designed to advance moral instincts that we all reject every day of our lives.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
One last thing. I wish I had saved that article about ancient Hawaiian artifacts being found deep in the Polynesian islands. That's a multi-thousand mile journey over open ocean.
The rules that apply are the same.
That's funny! The budget deficit means the government has to borrow money and we have to pay interest for their privilege. When I buy a sweater from Chile for cash and add to our trade deficit, I'm not paying any interest.
So which rules are you talking about?
“That’s funny! The budget deficit means the government has to borrow money and we have to pay interest for their privilege. When I buy a sweater from Chile for cash and add to our trade deficit, I’m not paying any interest.
So which rules are you talking about?”
Imports=expenses and Exports=income on a nationa level. More imports than exports means more money is going out than is coming in.
“Balance of Payments.”
Does nothing to bring money back into our economy after it is sent to other countries by imports. The only way to bring it back is by exports.
Sorry, national income is GDP, $14 trillion.
More imports than exports means more money is going out than is coming in.
The money comes back, we have a capital account surplus. Balance of payments. Learn it, Live it, Love it.
Does nothing to bring money back into our economy after it is sent to other countries by imports.
Now I'm pointing at you and laughing.
But was the regional trade governed in Brussels?
“Now I’m pointing at you and laughing.”
And doing nothing to prove me wrong.
I think I will return the favor to you.
“The balance of payments (BOP) is the method countries use to monitor all international monetary transactions at a specific period of time. Usually, the BOP is calculated every quarter and every calendar year. All trades conducted by both the private and public sectors are accounted for in the BOP in order to determine how much money is going in and out of a country. If a country has received money, this is known as a credit, and, if a country has paid or given money, the transaction is counted as a debit. Theoretically, the BOP should be zero, meaning that assets (credits) and liabilities (debits) should balance. But in practice this is rarely the case and, thus, the BOP can tell the observer if a country has a deficit or a surplus and from which part of the economy the discrepancies are stemming.”
In other words record keeping. It still does nothing to bring any money sent outside our economy back into our economy.
“Sorry, national income is GDP, $14 trillion.”
The subject is not productivity, which is what GDP accounts for. The subject is US trade, not the entire economy, just US trade.
Yes. Record keeping instead of feelings.
The Capital Account
The capital account is where all international capital transfers are recorded. This refers to the acquisition or disposal of non-financial assets (for example, a physical asset such as land) and non-produced assets, which are needed for production but have not been produced, like a mine used for the extraction of diamonds.
The capital account is broken down into the monetary flows branching from debt forgiveness, the transfer of goods, and financial assets by migrants leaving or entering a country, the transfer of ownership on fixed assets (assets such as equipment used in the production process to generate income), the transfer of funds received to the sale or acquisition of fixed assets, gift and inheritance taxes, death levies, and, finally, uninsured damage to fixed assets.
GDP is Gross Domestic Product. Not productivity.
The subject is US trade, not the entire economy, just US trade.
You have a trade deficit with your grocery store (tired example, just like your ignorance is a tired example).
You buy from the grocery store, they do not buy from you. How will you survive? Every year they get more and more of your money. Money they never return to you. How can you afford to continue?
Easily, your income (GDP) is more than the money you spend at the grocery store.
“You have a trade deficit with your grocery store”
my grocery store is within our economy. Imports from other countries are not.
“Yes. Record keeping instead of feelings.”
Record keeping does NOTHING to bring any dollars back to the US.
Forget our economy, I'm talking about your economy. Nothing you do will ever get those dollars back from the grocery store, you're doomed. LOL!
Record keeping shows that the dollars do come back. Sorry you have a comprehension problem.
“Forget our economy, I’m talking about your economy.”
Wrong. When I spend money at my local grocery store, they have to restock the shelves, which circulates money around to the suppliers, the shippers, the warehousers. That money circulation comes back in full circle and creates jobs here in my world.
“Record keeping shows that the dollars do come back. Sorry you have a comprehension problem.”
In order to show that the money comes back, it will have to show how it comes back. The answer is simple, if there is not equal exports to imports, the money does not come back.
You agreed this was record keeping and somehow you translate that someone who puts numbers down on paper and creates a report equals money coming back into our economy and you do not, or can not explain how. That is because record keeping does zero to bring any money back into our economy.
None of them are you.
That money circulation comes back in full circle and creates jobs here in my world.
And you think our capital account surplus doesn't? LOL!
Do you know what capital is? LOL!
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